British Columbia · Civic arena
Nanaimo drinking water hardness is 127 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#289 of 343
41% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Nanaimo packs 7 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.
Rivalries on deck
Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas.
Full Nanaimo water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Courtenay · vs Port CoquitlamHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Nanaimo from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.
Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Nanaimo.
Nanaimo sits at City Score rank #289 with a standing of 41%, from 7 of 8 open-data pillars (tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, growth, safety). Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. Dropping 33 places versus 2022 (#256 → #289).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #201 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #135 of 343 at 177 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #113 of 343 (11.24 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #289 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Rank #256
Rank #201
Rank #134
Rank #135
No placement
Rank #113
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for Nanaimo.
Harbour island day trip by boat or kayak, named in city lifestyle copy beside Mount Benson climbs. A short hop that still feels like
Downtown landmark the city lights in civic colours for awareness days and holidays. A quick orientation point if you are new to the harbour
The World Championship Bathtub Race has been part of Nanaimo Marine Festival lore since 1967.
Where Nanaimo sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Nanaimo introduces itself as the Harbour City, a mid-Island centre on Snuneymuxw First Nations land where the slogan beat out Hub City even though both still fit. From a BC Ferries deck the town climbs the hill; from downtown the Bastion gets lit for civic colour days while Maffeo Sutton Park holds the waterfront playground and public-art stretch. Saysutchun (Newcastle) Island sits just offshore for kayak days, and Mount Benson marks the western skyline when the sun drops.
People still grin about the Nanaimo Bar Trail, but the municipal About page is quick to stack coal-town, timber-town, and port-town chapters behind the dessert joke. Serauxmen Stadium is marking fifty years of baseball, the Stadium District keeps adding amenities, and Loudon Park and Rotary Bowl show up in the same recreation upgrade beat. The Nanaimo Aquatic Centre and a big parks-and-trails inventory keep island recreation practical year-round, not just brochure-deep.
Nanaimo News Bulletin covers Best of the City votes beside Timbermen lacrosse, Commercial Street Night Market nights, and the usual planning fights over industrial lands. Bathtub Race summer still belongs to the Nanaimo Marine Festival story locals expect visitors to ask about. My Nanaimo This Week keeps the civic drip going between council summaries. Port cargo, two ferry terminals, and short-hop flights keep the hub role real north of the Malahat, while Millstone River imagery shows up even in playground design at Maffeo Sutton. On OpenStats City Score for 2026, Nanaimo sits at rank 73 of 125. The shorthand stays Harbour City, with a Nanaimo Bar for the road.
Drawn from City of Nanaimo - About Nanaimo, City of Nanaimo, Nanaimo News Bulletin, City of Nanaimo - History of Nanaimo.
City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.
Each study below is its own ranking. Where a study has more than one edition for this city, the chart shows standing across those years only.
Connectivity · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by estimated best advertised download (Mbps). Anchored to the current ISED National Broadband Data vintage, then backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber-arrival and 50/10 availability paths so relative ranks can change over the decade. Not a claim of audited historical hex maps for every year.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by calendar-year building permit value. Direct rows sum Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0292-01. Cities without a direct reading use population × provincial per-capita permit intensity (estimated), so every seed city has a year-varying construction signal.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Composite · OpenStats
OpenStats
Dimensional average of OpenStats open-data pillars for each panel year 2016–2025: tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity. Each series is scored 0–1 within its edition; series in the same pillar are averaged, then all eight pillars are averaged with equal weight. Missing pillars score at median standing (0.5). Growth and CSI use StatCan annual tables; permits, mill rates, and broadband use live rows plus documented year-varying estimates where needed. Radon, water, and PGA may be survey/model vintages carried forward and are flagged when static for more than two years. External commercial livability lists are never inputs.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Safety · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index (Table 35-10-0026-01). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Values are CMA where a metro match exists, otherwise provincial CSI. Hometown pages label the grain.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by municipal drinking-water hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃). Hardness changes slowly; the atlas vintage is carried across panel years and flagged when static for more than two years.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by reported lead (µg/L) on the OpenStats water atlas. Carried across panel years until annual municipal report panels are ingested.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Health · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean. Decade panel years without a new survey carry the CMA survey vintage forward; they are not annual retests.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Growth · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by year-over-year population growth from Statistics Canada annual CSD estimates (Table 17-10-0155-01). Rank 1 is fastest growth. A few places without a clean CSD match use a provincial-path estimate anchored to seed population.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate. Rank 1 is the highest rate. Published municipal years are used when available; gaps are interpolated or follow the provincial median path so the tax pillar moves year to year for every city.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Livability
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
Single edition · 2021
Only one published edition places Nanaimo in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Quality of life
Numbeo
Crowd-sourced composite Quality of Life Index. Historical snapshots are free on Numbeo ranking pages; OpenStats cites Canadian cities from those public pages (cite_only). Higher index scores are better; ranks are global position on the snapshot page.
Single edition · 2026
Only one published edition places Nanaimo in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Municipal copy says Harbour City won the slogan debate over Hub City, though both labels still circulate.
The World Championship Bathtub Race has been part of Nanaimo Marine Festival lore since 1967.
Serauxmen Stadium is celebrating 50 years of baseball and community investment.
City parks inventory includes destination waterfront space at Maffeo Sutton Park with an inclusive playground.
Destination waterfront park with an accessible playground and rotating public art. It is the easy meet-up when guests arrive off the ferry.
Downtown landmark the city lights in civic colours for awareness days and holidays. A quick orientation point if you are new to the harbour edge.
Harbour island day trip by boat or kayak, named in city lifestyle copy beside Mount Benson climbs. A short hop that still feels like leaving town.
Long-running baseball grounds in the Stadium District, now marking a half-century of community sport. Locals treat it as more than a diamond.
When Nanaimo moves in a ranking, posts new permit figures, or lands in a study, get a short note. A few sends a year, only when something changes.
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